"Come on, Evans."

"No."

"Come on, one little date! Just one! What can it hurt?"

"I said no, Potter. Now go away. I need to Transfigure this raccoon."

"Oh, forget the raccoon. On what occasion would you actually need to know how to Transfigure a raccoon into an umbrella?"

"Well, say I accidentally leave my umbrella at home and it's raining…"

"So you don't have an umbrella but you have a spare raccoon lying around? Listen, Evans, our date is much more important than this raccoon. Which, incidentally, is eating your Herbology essay."

"What date?" said Lily irritably, dragging her raccoon away from the essay. "I haven't agreed yet!"

"Yet?" said James gleefully, jumping on the word. "Yet? 'Yet' implies the eventual intention of doing something! That means you're planning on agreeing at some point!"

Lily sighed inwardly. James had been pestering her to go on a date for weeks now—years, really, but recently his attempts had gotten more frequent, more desperate, and much more annoying. On one memorable occasion, he had stood all night outside the stairs to the girls' dormitory and serenaded her (that was the word he used—Lily preferred the word "harassed") with bagpipes (she still didn't understand where he found them, much less where he learned to play them). The upside was that the stairs had turned into a slide every time James started to ascend them, so he couldn't actually get up to Lily's room (though that wasn't for lack of trying). The downside was that after about an hour of this, every Gryffindor (and even a few Hufflepuffs, which Lily still didn't understand) could be found in the common room, roaring with laughter at James's attempts at seduction. Only at three in the morning, when Lily, after much yelling and a few hexes, threatened to get McGonagall and suggest to her that James be suspended from the Quidditch team (Sirius had nearly had a heart attack at the idea), did James finally give up and go to bed—although judging by the smug look on his face, Lily guessed that his latest failure had not swayed his determination.

Apparently, Lily thought grimly to herself, her suspicions had been right. Playing the bagpipes in front of dozens of laughing Gryffindors had not been sufficiently embarrassing; he was planning on humiliating himself further. Lily dreaded what further abasement James had up his sleeve. She was getting tired of being followed around by valentine-wielding dwarves and being serenaded by bagpipes (although she had been secretly impressed by James's rendition of "A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love"). She was beginning to think that it would be a whole lot easier to just give in and go on the stupid date.

"Alright, Potter," she said slowly, twirling her wand in her hand, still not taking her eyes of the raccoon. "Tell you what. I'll go out with you…"

"YES!" said James, pumping his fist into the air. "Finally! I knew you would give in eventually!"

"Hang on a minute," said Lily, a mischievous smile beginning to creep into the corners of her mouth. "I'll go out with you…if you can beat me on tomorrow's Potions exam."

James deflated slightly. Behind him, Lupin shook his head, smiling slightly, and Sirius said, "Good luck with that, Prongs. Best just go ask out Moaning Myrtle now. At least you won't die completely alone."

James recovered quickly. "Potions? No problem," he said nonchalantly, loping back to his table and settling into his chair with ease. "I'm ace at Potions. I have this in the bag. Start picking out your dress robes, Evans. You're gonna need 'em. James Potter doesn't skimp on his dates."

"That would requiring actually getting dates in the first place," said Sirius. James shoved him off his seat.

Lily smiled to herself. Tomorrow's Potions exam was on antidotes, one of her best subjects. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be enduring any more bagpipe serenades for a long time…although, she thought absentmindedly, recalling the way James's sparkling eyes and windswept black hair had looked after his last Quidditch match, perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing if she didn't do so well on Potions tomorrow…

"Moony, help me," James whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "What the hell is Golpalott's Third Law?"

Lupin chuckled softly under his breath, adding a few more ingredients to his cauldron. "Sorry, Prongs," he muttered. "I think you're gonna need to come up with a new tactic to get that date."

James spared him a scowl before glancing furtively across the room at Lily, who was happily adding a sprig of peppermint to her steaming cauldron. Slughorn had already walked by her twice, both times shouting words like "splendid" and "marvelous" and praising Lily's potioneering skills. He had said nothing as he walked by James, thinking it best to hold his breath as he passed by the acrid fumes emanating from James's cauldron.

"Come on!" James begged. "I'm desperate here! I am one antidote away from a date with Lily Evans!"

"It's gonna take more than an antidote to get her to date you, mate," said Sirius. "You could try threatening her with some poison, though. That always works."

"Speak from experience, do you, Sirius?" said Remus wryly, while James craned his neck to squint at Lily through the spirals of steam that filled that classroom.

"I don't need poison to get dates," said Sirius, throwing ingredients into his cauldron at random. "My devilishly good looks and charming personality do that for me."

"Anyways, Prongs," said Sirius a minute later, "what happened to these remarkable potioneering skills you supposedly possess? You're Head Boy, you're supposed to be smart."

"I am smart!" said James indignantly. "It just so happens that my considerable knowledge and expertise does not extend to this particular area of study."

"Shame," said Sirius, yawning. "Your girlfriend seems to know what she's doing."
And sure enough, when Slughorn called time and circled the room to inspect the potions, he extolled Lily's potionmaking brilliance, stating that he had rarely seen such natural gifts.

"Come on, Evans, give me one more go," James said as the class filed out of the room. "You had an unfair advantage! Let's have another round, and this time I get to pick the subject, it's only fair."

Lily, who, at this point, sincerely doubted that James could beat her in anything, smiled inwardly as she did the clasps on her bag. "Well, alright," she said slowly, as if reluctant to agree. "What do you propose?"

"Quidditch," said James, smiling broadly. "If you can get a goal past me on a broom, you don't have to date me."

"You'll stop pestering me?" said Lily dubiously.

"I swear on Sirius's mum's life," said James solemnly.

"Feel free to break that promise, mate," Sirius intoned from behind them.

"Alright," said Lily. "If you win, I'll go on a date with you. But if I score that goal, you are not allowed to ask me out ever again."

"Deal," said James cheerfully. "Prepare yourself, Evans. You're in for the date of your life."

"But she doesn't even play Quidditch!" James whined the next day. "How did she score that goal?"

"I know, mate," said Sirius consolingly. "Rotten luck."

"Where did she learn to throw like that?" James demanded of no one in particular. "I mean, did you see the backspin on that Quaffle? I can't even get that kind of acceleration!"

"Yeah, well, you're a prat," said Sirius. "Perhaps that has something to do with it."

"I just don't understand," James said, throwing himself into an armchair by the fire. "I mean, she can't even play Quidditch. I've never seen her on a broom in my life!"

"I think you need to accept the possibility that you are not actually the best Quidditch player in the world," said Sirius.

James ignored him, still thinking back a few hours ago to the Quidditch pitch. He had had no idea that Lily could actually play Quidditch. Obviously, if he had, he never would have suggested it in the first place…perhaps he could get her to agree to bet on something else…Gobstones, maybe…of course, he had never actually played Gobstones….

"Right, I'm going to find her," said James, jumping up.

"Of course you are," Sirius muttered under his breath. Remus suppressed a grin.

"I'll just convince her to do something else," said James. "There's gotta be something she's bad at…wizard chess?…no, she's head of the chess club…Charms? No, that won't work either, she got a hundred and twelve percent on the last exam…"

He continued to mutter all the way through the portrait hole and out of the common room.

Lupin glanced over at Sirius. "Do you think he'll ever give up?"

Sirius, lounging in an armchair with his feet propped up on a pile of textbooks, turned a page of Witch Broomstick idly. "I don't know what James Potter you've been hanging around with for seven years, Moony, but the one I know wouldn't give up on Lily Evans if a twenty foot mountain troll sat on his head and used it as a nutcracker."

Remus smiled and returned to his Herbology textbook.

James was still muttering under his breath when he ran into Lily in the Entrance Hall.

"Ah, Evans, good, I was just looking for you," said James immediately. "Listen, I know you thrashed me at Quidditch, but I was thinking, have you ever tried racing nifflers—"

"Potter, that is enough!" Lily exploded suddenly. "You promised me, twice now, actually, that you would stop bothering me, and what do you do? You come and pester me for a date again! Well, I'm sorry, but I've given you my answer, and if you don't like it then I can hex you and we'll see how you like that instead!"

There was a loud, ringing silence, in which James, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, stared at Lily, who glared back at him. Everyone else in the hall stood frozen, glancing back and forth between the pair of them like a tennis match.

The silence stretched on for several more moments before James blinked rapidly several times and cleared his throat.

"You're right," he said finally, staring down at Lily. "I gave you my word that I would stop asking you and I didn't. I'm sorry."

"Well, if you're going to keep pestering me then I will just go straight to McGonagall and—wait, what?" said Lily, suddenly stopping short. "What did you say?"

"You're right," James repeated. "I'm sorry."

"That's…that's right," said Lily, still caught off-guard. "I mean…I'm right. Right."

"Right," James repeated, still looking down at her, a slight crease between his eyes. "Well, I'll just…I'll just go then."

He turned and started trudging back toward the common room.

Lily stared at his retreating figure, thinking hard…James Potter had admitted that she was right…James…

"Wait!"

James turned to find Lily running toward him. She stopped a few feet short of him, slightly breathless, staring up at his face.

"It's Hogsmeade weekend on Saturday," she said. "Meet me in the common room at ten o'clock and we can go to the Three Broomsticks together."

And with that, she turned on her heel and strode back toward the Great Hall.

"Wait," James said slowly, "what?" He stared after her. "Did you just ask me out, Evans?" he called more loudly.

Lily just turned and grinned at him, waving once before heading into the Great Hall with her friends.

James turned and walked slowly up the marble staircase toward the Gryffindor common room, a grin spreading slowly across his face. He had a feeling that this Hogsmeade weekend was going to be the best one yet…